


the long waves crawl

by depugnare



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Magic, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Curses, F/M, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Multi, Witch!Miranda, it's not graphic but like read between the lines, kind of, witch!Silver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-15 14:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depugnare/pseuds/depugnare
Summary: Many years ago, under the blooms of a jacaranda tree, there was a boy born in a house next to the sea.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank @shadow-magnet on tumblr for their wonderful art for this! And for being so patient with such a procrastinator of an author.
> 
> I would also like to thank @slverjohn for proofreading this chapter for me and letting me bounce ideas off of her. 
> 
> And finally I would like to thank @tomasortega for letting me use some of our co-headcanons in this fic.

_ Over and back,  _

_ the long waves crawl  _

_ and track the sand with foam;  _

_ night darkens, and the sea  _

_ takes on that desperate tone  _

_ of dark that wives put on  _

_ when all their love is done.  _

 

 

**_**_-_ ** _ **

 

  
  


_ Here is a story: _

 

_ Many years ago, under the blooms of a jacaranda tree, there was a boy born in a house next to the sea. _

 

_ This boy who had no mother, save for the moon, would change his face like hers and call himself by many names. Would be raised by himself and by magic, caught between many lives and belonging to no one.  _

 

_ This is a boy with no name, but full to bursting with the desire to be known. To be loved.  _

 

_ How does one without a name become known? _

 

_ So he named himself Silver, after the moon that taught him how to survive. Who taught him that the dark was not so frightening as long as her bright, kind face looked down on him. That the world was livable in those quiet hours when mankind slept and the animals and plants had time to breathe without fear. _

 

_ This was a boy who desired to be loved in a world where love was not easy and this, perhaps, is the most tragic thing of all. _

 

 

****-** **

 

 

John Silver was not a man to be told that everything was inevitable.

 

The magic that ran through his veins, that crackled in his bones, told him otherwise. Some things are meant to happen, they will happen no matter what, but how and why they happen is never set in stone. For many years he fought this fact before deciding that he can be dragged towards an outcome, but how he ends up there can be changed.

 

He will always be the same person, but his past does not have to be. He has had many names, many pasts. Has jumped from one life to the next as easily as many people breathe.

 

But  _ Silver _ is always there.

 

Always waiting to let him know that no matter where he runs, no matter how much he lies, his magic will whisper in his ear that something is coming. 

 

That he will be known.

 

Has dreams of hands reaching out towards him. Grabbing and tearing at his skin and his hair until he’s reduced to a bloodied corpse. Wakes up gasping in terror over and over again until it no longer frightens him.

 

_ Someone will know you _ his magic whispers.

 

_ Some will know the marrow in your bones. Every little secret and horror you keep tucked away between your ribs. _

 

So he runs. Runs until he reaches the end of the earth and is met by the sea.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

Nassau sang with magic in a way that Silver hadn’t felt since his childhood, not unlike his hazy memories of a ramshackle house crowded with herbs, people, and all sorts of books that smelled of cedar smoke and lavender.

 

Only here he was not hidden, nor was he safe. He darted through the streets, avoiding the hungry looks that other magic users gave him. Felt their eyes on his skin and knew they could smell the magic in his blood. Could see how plants leaned towards him as though he was made of sunlight, animals watching with keen eyes from the shadowy alleyways.

 

Thinks of the sharp green eyes of Captain Flint, face smeared in blood, and shivers. He’d felt something dark and unyielding from that man. Something that threatened to swallow Silver whole and so he’d given himself to the sea the first chance he got. Made his way to land and away from that swirling tempest of a man.

 

Though now he sees the crew approaching him in a small group, grinning as they zero in on him and he can’t help but feel nervous.

 

“You’re the new one right?” one man asks and Silver nods, despite stepping away from him.

 

What happens next is unexpected, but a stroke of luck nonetheless. Brothels have always hummed steady with magic, even in places more tame than Nassau.

 

One of the whores is a woman with kohl lined eyes who had watched but hadn’t touched, observing him with a knowing look. She’s beautiful, with dark curling hair and pretty cheekbones, but it’s the warm hum of magic under her skin that draws Silver close.

 

“A whore for every finger on your hand and your eyes stayed on this,” she says, producing the leather tube that held the page he’d stolen.

 

Beautiful and  _ smart _ . The most dangerous kind of woman.

 

The most powerful kind of witch.

 

He reaches out and tries to take it from her, but his fingertips spark when he touches hers and she smirks as though he’s just told her a secret.

 

“So you are one of us,” she murmurs, circling him. “I thought I felt something strange come into this house. It’s not often we get a man like you. A witch.”

 

Silver shivers when she says the word, but he watches her back, smirking when she goes to open the leather tube and can’t. Struggles with it a moment more before looking up at him, surprise bare on her face.

 

“You’re powerful,” she says, before holding out the tube. “But one scream will bring Mr. Noonan in here.”

 

Silver’s face drops and it’s her turn to smile at him, sly and amused.

 

“I’ll tell him you steal from your customers,” he says back and she shrugs.

 

“And I’ll tell everyone on this island what you have,” she says. “Now tell me, what is it that has you so defensive?”

 

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” he says, yanking on his shirt. “Though I know it’s important.”

 

“Then perhaps you and I could find out together,” she hums, coming closer. 

 

There’s something achingly familiar about the way she moves, like there is so much more beneath those curls than most would think. That she is more dangerous than any of the pirates on this island. Reminds him of those lost to memory, tucked away in the back of his mind.

 

“Very well,” he says, tapping the leather canister so that the top easily comes off. “Let’s make a deal.”

 

She nods, plucking the paper from the tube and looking at it.

 

“See, Mr. -?”

 

“Silver. John Silver,” he says, giving her a quick bow. “At your service, Lady-?”

 

“Max,” she says, indulging him with a curtsy, though she hasn’t got on enough skirts for one. “Just Max.”

 

“Just Max,” Silver says with a grin. “How much do you know about the Walrus crew?”

 

She smiles, just as sharp, and leans in close to tell him all the secrets she knows.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

He was no stranger to the dark. Had grown to like it when it hid him from the horrors of daylight, from having to face the violence there. From looking upon the faces of those who commit it.

 

So when their plan was discovered and he was forced to flee into the night, he thought himself at an advantage. Let the shadows swallow him up as he hid among the wrecks, the outcasts and the unwanted shuffling about like ghosts in the comforting darkness. They paid him no mind, recognizing one of their own.

 

The men chasing him were different though. They had no fear of the dark, no fear of the ugly or the unwanted. Nothing could stop them in pursuit of what he held. Words on a page, worth a hundred times their weight in gold.

 

They would kill him for it, these scribbled lines of information, so he did what he does best.

 

Gathered a secret like spider silk and spun a web in his mind, weaving a spell to remember. Read the schedule out loud to himself, as though these words had come from his own mouth. Read them until they became his, words that belonged to the curve of his teeth.

 

Reached out and burned the schedule, sealing his own fate.

 

Now it was time to join the game. To see if he and death could play against each other again.

 

He lets Captain Flint press a knife to his throat, radiating power in the dark, teeth white in the moonlight. Held his hands up in surrender when Flint snarled at him.

 

“Where is it?”

 

Silver curled one hand until his finger pressed against the tender skin of his temple.

 

Saw understanding come over Flint’s face, fury rising until he seemed to burn with it, hair a shocking red against the blue of night.

 

“You’re looking at it,” he says, triumphant even as hands fist in his shirt and pull him away from the other men, crawling over the rocks like spiders.

 

Soon he would come to find out that what he had burned had not been just words.

 

That the secret he held contained his future too.

  
  


 

**_**_-_ ** _ **

 

  
  


It’s surprisingly easy to adjust to life aboard a pirate ship. The crew don’t like him much, but then again the crew of the merchant ship had never liked him much either. Sailors tend to be more wary than most, suspicious from too much time spent at the mercy of the sea.

 

It’s not an unwise way to be, but Silver found that it made them better at recognizing magic than most. They could see how the wind clung to his hair and the way the sun never seemed to burn his skin like it did theirs.

 

It made him an outcast, and pirates let their displeasure with those who did not belong show more easily that others. How they could not see the spell cast on Flint then, Silver surmised that someone much more powerful than him had cast it on him. Though his body held many scars and he sailed with an arrogance that wasn’t unusual among men in these waters, there was something that surrounded and protected him beyond his reputation. Silver had seen him without his shirt once, working alongside the men to unfurl one of the sails. 

 

The placement of his scars belonged to a dead man.

 

A knife wound between the ribs. A pale, knotted bullet wound to the left of his heart. The new gash across his chest, which should have gone deeper than it had.

 

Yes, a very powerful witch held Captain Flint in their favor, this much was certain. 

 

It made sense though. Watching the crew whisper and grow disgruntled, but never quite boiling over into mutiny. As if they knew their efforts would be futile. Listens to Flint speak, words like honey over raw, open wounds, and would be beguiled if he could not smell the rot in the air.

 

It makes him wonder, what this man has done to be gifted this. To be made unkillable when he is just the sort of man witches tend to avoid. Violent and arrogant, the type of man that even magic couldn’t shield you from. The type that could be useful, if the favor he held was returned upon the person who protected him.

 

For just as nature itself was powerful but easily destroyed by man, so too was magic. There was no magic that could help you against the brute force of a human’s violence. No shield from the need for money and power in a world that would eat you alive for the misfortune of being poor. Hunger could still consume you. Pain still break you. A river can flood, but humans will build a dam and redirect it. Every witch understood this and learned to play the game of survival early. 

 

So Silver watches from the shadows, watching Flint’s aristocratic hands drift over the wheel of the ship, the paper of logs and schedules and maps. Looks for the pause of fingers, the furrow of a brow. Any hint of something important.

 

A secret.

 

Finds it when he hears the name Barlow pass through the ship, a wave of rumors caught in the empty spaces of the ship. A woman that Flint goes home to on the island, far inland where the more respectable population lives. The men call her a witch, a seductress, a fae that lured Flint into the other realm and made him one of them.

 

Silver wants to laugh. She is only a woman, doing as women do, and frightening men for not being how they expect her to be.

 

The next time they’re ashore, he vows to find her, this Mrs. Barlow. See if there’s anything she could do to help him.

 

Any way to steal the knowledge she must have.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

When he learns what has happened between being captured and being placed in Eleanor’s office, he finds it unforgivable and he cannot let it go. Not even if it places the gold at risk. Not when such a crime has been committed against a fellow witch. 

 

He only hears whispers of it from others, passed around until it reaches him, stuck in the darkness of Eleanor’s office. When she herself enlists his help. Tells him that if he helps them, then she will protect him from Flint when he eventually outlives his usefulness.

 

It’s a convenient excuse, to not reveal that had she not approached him, he would have helped Anne Bonny anyways. Would have enlisted the help of the night to do so. This way, he doesn’t have to reveal anything more about himself before he’s sent out to do her bidding.

 

_ Too long _ , he thinks as he approaches Hamund.  _ Too long in the dark. _

 

Too long have we hid from these men, with their hands full of blood and their bodies made of violence.

 

Too long has it been since he killed someone who truly deserved it. Since he looked into the eyes of another and compelled them with nothing more than lies.

 

Sent them to face a woman with twin blades, jackal among the lambs.

 

Listened at the window of Eleanor Guthrie’s office as a great cry went up and the birds inside the brothel screamed, clouds covering the moon and plunging the island into darkness.

 

Too long he thinks, since the men of this place have known fear.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

It seems that even with his long memory and his skill for remembering herbs, Silver isn’t a good cook and the lie he told soon becomes more of a hindrance than a help as he tries to make his way aboard this ship. First the roast pig with disastrous results before the day becomes truly terrible with the loss of Randall’s leg.

 

Then a batch of mashed potatoes that make several men ill, though it’s not Silver’s fault, he thinks, that the milk had gone sour and he couldn’t smell it in the hot, smoky hell that was the ship’s galley.

 

Now he’s stirring a stew on the beach as night falls, the glow of the cooking fire illuminating everything in a red light that makes the crew look half wild even as they smile and laugh among each other. Watching as Flint paces the shoreline, staring out at the water, calm as glass. A storm must be coming.

 

“What’s he doing?” he asks Gates, who’s standing beside him to watch him cook to ensure food quality. He’s been quiet since the debacle with the Andromache and Billy was lost overboard.

 

“The captain. What’s he doing?” he repeats when Gates gives him a questioning look.

 

“Who knows. He always seems to know how the water is going to behave. Never seen someone so attuned to the sea, and I’ve sailed with all sorts. Witches and dabblers and everyone in between. Hasn’t got a bit of magic to him but the sea favors him.”

 

Silver makes an interested noise, watching Flint’s hair flicker in the firelight like a flame.

 

“All sorts? I’ve never seen a place like Nassau, with magic so wild.”

 

“All port cities are like this,” Gates says with the shrug of an experienced seaman. “Even London has its parts where it’s not so regulated. The further away you get from civilization, the more of it there is. Here there’s no reason to ignore it, not when it can help you. Not when it makes the scramble for power more difficult.”

 

Silver thinks he must be right, remembering the wild greens he grew up in before everything had happened. Before-

 

“Where is the captain from?” he asks and Gates shrugs.

 

“England, and that’s as much as we’ve ever learned. It’s a wise thing not to ask. He won’t even talk about Mrs. Barlow to us.”

 

Her again. The woman so close to Flint.

 

“How? Doesn’t she live here?”

 

“She lives inland,” Gates says. “And our sorts don’t go inland. Bad luck, and the plantation owners hire men that are good shots that get even better when they see us. You’re better off just staying here, near the beach where it’s safe.”

 

Silver could argue against that, but falls quiet as he thinks while absently stirring the stew. He knows Flint is furious about the Andromache and everything to do with it, but Silver doesn’t doubt he’ll find a way around the setback. Not when the tide seems to pick up with the energy of the captain’s anger, waves snarling against the sand.

 

“Where are you from Mr. Silver?” Gates asks and Silver turns to him.

 

“Whitechapel,” he says easily. “Butcher’s son. Never knew my father. You know, your typical street rat.”

 

Gates squints at him, suspicious, but eventually he seems satisfied by that .

 

“Son of a butcher? And he never taught you how to roast a pig?”

 

“Died when I was young, and thank god for that,” Silver mutters, stirring the pot. “Don’t you have a crew to keep in line?”

 

“A hungry crew that should have been fed an hour ago?” Gates says, giving him a shit eating grin. “It’s dark Mr. Silver. You’re going to get an earful for being too slow again.”

 

Silver only sighs as the men start to circle like vultures waiting for their food, and he eventually gives up and lets them ladle out their own stew. Heads toward the water, kicking his shoes and socks off so he can roll up his trousers, stepping into the water.

 

It’s warm against his skin in the dark, the sky hazy with clouds that will soon cover the moon and bring rain.

 

“You’re supposed to be watching the men,” a voice says to his left, raspy and displeased.

 

He turns to see Flint glaring at him.

 

“The stew is bad, so those who eat more of it will regret it,” he says simply, turning away from Flint. 

 

He’s not frightened by him, out here in the dark. Not when the moon is out and watching over him.

 

“You’re supposed to make sure they don’t take more for themselves.”

 

“And you’re not supposed to lie to your crew,” Silver says, feeling bold.

 

“Don’t think that because Eleanor Guthrie put in a good word for you that I won’t gut you like a fish if you get in my way,” Flint says, before pushing past him and heading down the beach. Silver watches him go for a moment, before deciding to go the other way.

 

The beach is less crowded the further away from the docks you go, and once it’s quiet and dark, Silver sits down in the sand, close enough to the water that the waves still lap at his feet. All around him crabs emerge from their nests to look at him, and he picks up a tiny one, letting it crawl across his palm.

 

“You don’t even know how important the beach you’ve made your home in is,” he says, watching it try to pinch his fingers with no success. “Do you? Wish I could say the same. This sand is more important than I’d like it to be.”

 

He lays back in the sand after a long while, staring up at the stars, and from across the water comes the distant roll of thunder he’d been expecting. It had been too hot a day for there to be no storms, and from the smell of it on the wind, it was going to cause some damage.

 

“Do it,” he says to the dark, and the sky rumbles. “Destroy this place.”

 

Beneath him, the sand shifted in response as the curse sank into the earth. 

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_ Once, long ago, the land was not divided as it is now with vast stretches of water between worlds. _

 

_ Once, there was only the earth, the sea, and the sky and that is when magic first bloomed across the earth. _

 

_ Once, all beings had magic from the day they were born. Life itself was magic, the steady noise of a heartbeat the first spell. From this, all things came forward. Humans made many Gods to explain it. Gods of the sea and the air and the rain. One god who created life.  _

 

_ There has only ever been the Mother and her sister, the Moon. Witches know this. It is why among all the curse breakers and oath makers and tinkerers and alchemists, they are closest to their magic. Can speak to the earth and all the creatures who live there. Can be thrown into the deepest water but never be denied the light of the moon. _

 

_ Witches, and those who live in-between. Lost beings. Ghosts and fae alike, who belong neither Here nor There. They slip in and out of our world as they please, staying for a night or for centuries. _

 

_ Everyone knows this. Everyone has seen them. Spirits who bend light around them, only a shadow of the one you loved. Fae, with their unblinking eyes and too-wide mouths. There are stories and myths alike. Even the most doubtful of folk, the most pious of the religious, dare not deny their existence. That would be inviting a demonstration to prove you fatally wrong.  _

 

_ These are the creatures that thrive in places like Nassau, where humans themselves are inbetween. Adrift and lonely and violent in their greed. Hungry for love. For power. _

 

_ They are everywhere. Within the brothel, perched in the shadows to watch the customers. In the marketplace selling exactly what you need. _

 

_ So when there came a rumor of a woman who lives inside a house that no one has ever visited, where no one had ever eaten, of course then came the whispers that Mrs. Barlow was beyond a witch. She was one of the few who had slipped through and ensnared Flint with her words. That when she smiled she had too many teeth. That her eyes could peer into you very soul. _

 

_ Only one of these was true. _

 

 

****-** **

 

 

The storm did not destroy the island, but what came next was worse. Mr. Gates dead in the captain’s cabin, life seemingly taken for nothing as the secrets he knew are exposed to the crew. A mutiny aboard the ship as they fight to reach the  _ Urca _ alongside the  _ Ranger,  _ pistols drawn and crimes read aloud.

 

Silver thinks that perhaps he should have poisoned this crew, allowed them all to suffer in agony as he made his escape, but that would be too easy. For now Silver must contend with angry men and another ship full of angrier men. Cannonfire and flying debris as the Spanish war ship they’ve been pursuing turns broadside and opens fire. It’s chaos, no amount of magic useful against the blunt violence of such weapons. The deck is slick with blood by the time Silver makes to the steps down to the hold, but then he watches a cannonball rip through the railing, impact sending a wounded Flint into the water.

 

Silver hesitates, but he figures that if he has Flint then at least there will be two of them at the mercy of the crew and not just Silver. Shrugs off his jacket before he leaps over the side after him, narrowly missing a body before he hits the water. Dives down, down, down until he can grasp Flint by the coat, struggling to bring him up. Kicks furiously until he manages to get a good enough hold on Flint before pulling him to the surface.

 

It’s hell when he comes back up, the water full of wood and burning debris, blood and bodies alike floating alongside them, but now Silver must make it to shore. Finds that Flint being unconscious doesn’t make him any less stubborn, limp and heavy in the water as Silver tries to make his way towards land. 

 

The smell of his blood is sickly and metallic in Silver’s nose, and he looks down to see that the wound from Dufresne is bleedingly sluggishly from Flint’s shoulder, skin raw around the wound. It looks exceedingly painful, in a part of the shoulder that moves too much to keep it still.

 

“Where is your Mrs. Barlow’s magic now?” he mutters, sighing in relief when he manages to reach water shallow enough for him to stand in. Pauses for a rest before he realizes that all the ships have stopped firing, and he looks back out to the water to see that the Walrus has lost, the war ship hastily making it way around the island to the other side.

 

“Help me,” he asks the water, watching as the Walrus then turns and starts towards the shore. “Help me get him onto land. I’ve heard he has your favor. Please, help me.”

 

The water seems to tremble around Silver at that, and then wave after wave starts pushing them towards the shore with purpose. Spits them out on the sand with one last furl of water, both of them tumbling out onto the sand less than gracefully. He ignores the ache in the wrist he landed on to crawl over to Flint, leaning down to press his ear to his chest.

 

It’s quiet, and then first the slow, solid beat of his heart is there before Flint takes a shuddering breath. Then two, then three, all without water in his lungs.

 

“You are one lucky bastard,” Silver mutters, pulling Flint’s collar aside to check his shoulder wound. It’s still bleeding sluggishly, but from what Silver has seen before, it doesn’t look too bad.

 

“I hope your Mrs. Barlow’s luck holds out for a while longer,” he says, looking up at the long boats from the Walrus making their way towards shore. “We’re going to need it.”

  
  


 

****-** **

 

 

Silver isn’t exactly sure what to think now.

 

Before, he had disliked Flint. Been afraid of him. Even as he’d pulled him ashore after the battle, he’d been wary of him. Of the violence and angry that crackled beneath his skin.

 

That was before they’d taken the war ship. Before they’d moved together like a team, swiftly taking out the crew one by one.

 

Before they’d pressed together behind a table, ready to fight an entire group of Spanish soldiers with two pistols and a couple of swords, only one of which Silver really knew how to use.

 

Now he finds himself watching Flint from up close in the darkness of the ship, closer than than before. He’s no longer captain and Silver is along for the dangerous ride associated with that. The crew don’t trust him anymore, though he doesn’t think they ever really warmed to him in the first place. As for Flint, they seem displeased he’s still alive.

 

Silver finds him more interesting like this, quiet and pensive as he no doubt plots to get his position as captain back. Where he’d mistaken it for luck and the simple explanation of experience, he finds that Flint is dangerously,  _ dangerously _ smart. Thinks that without the power of captain and the ability to yell at whom he pleases, he’s not distracted from actually thinking things through and Silver can’t decide if this is a good or a bad thing.

 

Stands at his side as they watch Dufresne bring them alongside a ship, low in the water with cargo and quick to surrender.

 

“The men of these waters are hard men,” Flint says, as Dufresne speaks to the other ship’s captain. “They don’t fear ships. Or guns and swords. They don’t even fear magic, like many have been taught to do.”

 

Silver knows this to be true. Sailors from all walks of life have their own sort of magic, hidden in ropes and knots and rituals that have turned to superstition.

 

“Then what do they fear?” he asks, and Flint turns and fixes him with a look that makes terror race up Silver’s spine. Heinously, his magic likes it, fingers itching to reach out and touch Flint’s skin to see if he truly has no magic. If this sort of man can really be just an ordinary human.

 

Flint smirks like he knows what Silver’s thinking, and turns back to watch the scene unfolding on the other ship.

 

“It’s a tricky business, learning when to raise the black,” Flint says. “Too soon and you might give them too much time to decide. Too little and they panic, more likely to fight.”

 

“And just right?” Silver asks.

 

“They surrender,” Flint says. “But then it’s a question of what sort of captain you’re dealing with. If you surrender, your life might be spared, but then there are others to answer to. The owner of the ship. The merchants whose goods are aboard. The creditors who will have to pay to reimburse those losses.”

 

His eyes narrow as he sees the other captain straighten up before Dufresne, shoulder set in a way that doesn’t speak of easy surrender.

 

“A ship might surrender, but whether her crew decides to stay that way all depends on reputation.”

 

“Are you him then?” they both hear the other captain say, and Silver watches as Dufresne, for once, looks at a loss for words.

 

“Captain Flint, are you him?”

 

It’s his hesitation that seals their fate, Silver realizes. He glances over at Flint, and finds him looking down with a smug sort of expectation that makes him look like a fox that’s just found his way into a hen house.

 

“You knew,” Silver says. “When we went after this ship. You knew he’d fail at this.” 

 

“The men may hate me,” Flint says, watching as the other ship’s crew get to their feet. “But I am the best captain they’ve ever sailed under, and they know it.”

 

There’s another quick beat of silence, and then the ship erupts into chaos as the crew fights back. Swords and guns make a thunderous racket as Silver steps away from the railing.He hears Flint turn and start barking orders, which the crew obeys even though he’s not their captain anymore. Dufresne and the others scramble to make their way back over to the Walrus and Silver can’t believe how easily they obey. Berates himself a moment later for thinking it could be that easy.

 

There’s a split second where Silver catches the familiar smell of charcoal and then he snaps around to look at the other ship. Sees a tall man fix his gaze on their ship, eyes burning white.

 

“A firestarter!” he screams. “They have a firestarter!” 

 

“Cut us loose!” Flint roars over the noise and the crew, so frightened by the possibility of fire, huries to obey. 

 

Dufresne stands and watches, looking so shocked that his rage isn’t even registering as the crew scrambles to obey Flint, some giving curious glances to Silver for having been able to sense the magic of another. It’s a risky gamble, knowing how wary the men are already because of what happened, but it’s better than being roasted to death before they can even fire their cannons.

 

“You have to sink that ship,” Flint says. “Or they’ll never fear that banner again.”

 

Dufresne hesitates and Flint looks at him as though, if he could, he’d kill him for that alone.

 

“Sink it!” Dufresne finally shouts, and worst of all the crew look to Flint before they move into action.

 

Silver feels like he’s just watched a death, though there is no body upon the deck.

 

Dufresne slowly retreats to the cabin, dragging his feet as though he knows he’s lost. As though it’s already been decided, when not an hour ago his captaincy was sure and steady.

 

Flint looks over his shoulder at Silver, and there’s an almost boyish look of mischief on his face to contrast the deed he’s just committed. Like he’s just won at playing a game, instead of viciously undermining a man who could still very well decide to kill them.

 

Like he knows that now Dufresne  _ can’t _ , or the crew would turn against him too.

 

It’s as if he knows through this, Flint has saved both their lives.

  
  


 

****-** **

 

  
  


Silver finds it easy to convince the crew to do what he needs them to for the vote. Most are simple men, with simple wants, though they’re not ones to underestimate. Put enough of them together and they can cause trouble.

 

He has learned, however, that some of them are more than a bit competent at magic than the average person. Joji is a skilled curse breaker, the men bringing him things that have been jinxed from petty arguments. A pistol that won’t fire. A sword that rusts no matter how clean it is. All fixed with a touch of Joji’s hand, worn and scarred from what must have been a lifetime of doing so.

 

Joshua has a strange sort of presence about him at times, and the one time he asks Muldoon about it, he shakes his head and tells Silver to leave it alone. He’s made a deal with something and none of them are keen to find out exactly what it is that makes him so wild in battle.

 

Even men like Logan and Muldoon. They have no magic themselves, but their earrings and jewelry buzz with it. An earring to give strength in the water here. A lucky ring there. All things that mark them as pirates, and not as one of the people who live inland. Silver’s only seen one or two of the businessmen who come to Nassau to speak to Eleanor Guthrie, and they look prim and tidy next to the population of Nassau Town. He can smell magic on them though, just as he can with anyone else. Clean and medicinal, no doubt practiced according to rigid rules. 

 

Still, they are just as easily beguiled by the whores as the next man, and Silver thinks it amusing to sit on one of the balconies for a few hours, watching man after man get lured in by women who use the same spells that thousands before them had used, to make their hair curl so and their skin smell sweet. Voices like songbirds, twittering for attention, sounding just right to the man with the heaviest pockets.

 

He can see, sometimes, why Flint feels so strongly about this place. Why he’s fighting so hard for it.

 

It’s just sand, a place where people pitch their tents and eke out an existence dictated by the mercy of the trade routes, but it’s a bit more tolerable than most he thinks.

 

Silver Is certainly more invested than he realizes, especially at the cool, vicious sort of pride he feels when Flint takes his place at the helm of the Walrus again.

 

Even when Billy reappears, dirty and half dead. Even when Flint opens fire on the fort.

 

He’s forgotten, what it’s like, to be invested in a place. How dangerous it is. Especially when the destruction of it could very well mean he ends up dead; oworse, forced to live in the middle of the devastation left behind.

 

It’s Mrs. Barlow, who quells the fight. Appears in the midst of a crowd with an aura of crows around her, or at least that’s what the crew tell Silver. He was not there to see her arrive.

 

“Don’t you mean a murder?” Silver asks and he’s given an affronted look in return. “A group of crows is called a murder.” 

 

“I said what I said! And I saw it  with my own two eyes! She arrived as the sun rose to the middle of the sky, scavenger birds all around her in a great big cloud. She’d come to lay claim to Flint’s life!”

 

Silver rolls his eyes and goes to find Flint himself. Spots his red hair, unique even here in Nassau, in the doorway to Eleanor’s tavern. Strides right up to him until Flint turns and there stands a dark haired woman in a fine linen dress. Silver comes to an immediate halt, taking a step back when she fixes her dark brown eyes on him.

 

Muldoon had been right. There were no birds about, but the aura around her fluttered with shadows and he realizes that Muldoon must have some Sight in him if he can see it. The power around her makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up and her gaze is like being mercilessly picked apart. He can see why she’s the one whose protection Flint holds. If he is something to be reckoned with, she is even more frightening.

 

She gives Flint a look and then turns and walks back inside before Flint comes down the steps to stand next to Silver.

 

“Yes?” he says softly, an edge of annoyance in his voice. “There’s been a development, what do you want?”

 

“Well,” Silver says. “There’s been a development down at the beach too.”

 

Flint listens as he tells him what’s happened with Billy, following him to where Silver has kept him during all this business with the fort. He isn’t pleased, Silver can tell that much, but it’s hard to figure out if the rumors are true. If Flint really did let Billy go and send him tumbling down into the water.

 

“So, what was the development that you were involved in?” Silver asks, eyeing the blood still crusted around Flint’s nose. Like someone had given him a well placed punch. 

 

“You’ll know when the rest of the men are told,” Flint says without looking at him. “You are not quartermaster Mr. Silver, that is an elected position just as captain is.”

 

“True,” Silver says with a nod. “But unlike you, the men talk around me. So maybe I won’t tell you what they say.”

 

Flint grabs him by the collar so quickly that Silver doesn’t have time to think as Flint slams him against the wall of one of the buildings.

 

“Listen you little shit,” Flint snarls, and Silver is reminded of their meeting at the Wrecks. Only this time he’s got nothing important to bargain with. “I don’t care how powerful a witch you think you are or how clever you think your tongue is. You’re here because you’re useful and if you get in the way of what I’m doing here I’ll-”

 

“You’ll what?” Silver asks. “Kill me? The men might not trust me very much, but it’s a sight more than they trust you. Hornigold could easily turn their thoughts against you if he wanted to and take over both crews.”

 

“Don’t tell me what I already know,” Flint hisses, giving him one last furious shake. “You said that Billy already told the crew that he fell and I tried to save him?”

 

Silver nods, watching him warily. Flint has the sort of look in his eye that usually preludes murder. All he does though, is give Silver a quick nod before continuing towards the beach. Makes his way into the hut where Silver had left Billy and goes to hug the larger man.

 

Billy gives Silver an astonished look over Flint’s shoulder and Silver can only shrug, shaking his head. Try as he might, as soon as he thinks he understands how Flint works he’s surprised by the man again.

 

“Glad to have you back,” says Flint, looking up at Billy with a grin that would curdle milk.

 

“Glad to be back, captain,” says Billy and Silver thinks that for all he can appear too trusting, Billy is no fool. You can’t survive long around Flint if you are.

 

The minute he hears Flint’s plan in opposition to Hornigold’s and how he’s going to let Vane keep the fort, Silver doubts that even the most genius of men could survive Flint’s chaos. Hornigold furiously demands a vote among the two crews to decide what the next course of action is to be and Silver can feel Flint’s eyes settle on him.

 

Ah, so that’s why he’d let Silver go earlier. He’s going to want his help. 

 

Of course.

 

Silver can accept that. As long as the gold is a priority. As long as all his sweet and honeyed words go towards his own wellbeing. He’ll lie all Flint wants if it means he can eventually leave this cursed place with a purse full of freedom. 

 

When he goes in search of Logan and finds him in a puddle of blood on the floor of one of the rooms in Max’s brothel, he decides that even this isn’t too big of a lie to tell. Feels a bit of pity for the woman who’d gotten caught up in whatever happened in here, but knows Logan was plenty stupid enough to have gotten killed like this. Finds it easy to fabricate a story about him running away with his woman to start a new life.

 

It’s when Max asks him if he’s one of the crew too that provides the biggest challenge for him.

 

He denies her an answer beyond asking her to clean the mess up. Can feel the room grow smaller as her magic flares, the building responding to her as its madam.

 

“That won’t work on me, Madam,” he says, looking over his shoulder at her. “The gold is still a priority, so you can relax. I hold no loyalty to Flint other than what is necessary to reach our goal.”

 

“You say that, but you will not look me in the eye when you say it.”

 

“He is protected by someone far more powerful than you or I,” Silver says, turning to face her. “Someone who can keep him alive despite his best attempts to die by another’s hand. I am not going to get in her way. You may try if you wish, but staying on his good side means staying on hers, and if that’s all it takes to reach that gold then so be it.”

 

“You’re speaking about the witch who lives inland, Mrs. Barlow. She’s the one who protects Flint?”

 

He nods and Max curls her lip in the way that means she’s nervous but trying not to show it.

 

“We don’t speak about her,” Max says softly. “She carries something old with her. Something that should not be seen by us.”

 

“An aura of crows,” Silver murmurs to himself and Max looks up, startled.

 

“What?”

 

“It’s what one of the men said about her,” Silver says. “That she had an aura of crows about her. I thought he must be mad until I saw her myself and she did have a shadow about her. An aura that looked like a murder of crows flying around her.”

 

“Stay away from her,” Max warns. “Her and Flint have always been strange, even for Nassau. Trusting them will get you nowhere good.”

 

He nods, to show he’s taken her advice seriously, before taking his leave. Doesn’t stop for one moment to think about how scary someone must be to make a witch like Max react like that.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_ Here is the thing about lies: to make up a good one, part of it must be true. _

 

_ Once, long ago, beneath a Jacaranda tree a boy was born in a house by the sea. That part was true. _

 

_ And this boy had no mother save the moon. That part was not. _

 

_ Once, not so long ago, there lived a boy by the sea in a house full of many mothers and sisters and aunts. A house full of magic and secrets. A colorful world where he went from room to room, greeted by his name and showered in love. A home where no men ever stayed for long.  _

 

_ Men who arrived with money in their hands and left without it. _

 

_ This, he learned, was the way of the world. That to survive in it, with these men and their greedy hands, one must gain the coins they arrived with. For no magic could save you from an empty belly or a landlord. No spell had yet been made that could save you from a knife or a pistol. Not unless luck was on your side, and she was not very forgiving these days. _

 

_ He also learned that men love lies. They love to be told they’re handsome when they’re ugly. Strong when they’re weak. Love to hear their merits, however nonexistent they may be. Men love to be told lies and they’ll pay for the chance. _

 

_ Of course, this was true of Silver too. _

 

_ Loved it so much that when his very self was stripped of him and all those who remembered that boy lay dead beneath the earth, he made himself anew. Told himself the story over and over again until it became true. _

 

_ Once, there was a boy, born under a sign painted with the faded image of a Jacaranda tree, in a brothel by the sea and he had a mother so beautiful that men would pay with their wedding rings to be with her. _

 

_ This boy had no father, for he belonged to no one and to everyone. A child of the community, all their shame and secrets put into a human form. A child blessed to have many mothers, all teaching their secrets to him as he grew. _

 

_ A child who had a name from each of them in turn, like the changing of the tide. Sweetling. Turtledove. Darling.  _

 

_ Mother, though, she called him Silver for the the color of his eyes when he was born. Pale blue, like the color of money being exchanged in secret. Silver, for the light of the moon he was born under. Silver, for how precious he would be. Silver, blessed with a quick mind and a  _

 

_ So while it was true that he had many mothers and many faces, even long after he ceased to be the boy they loved, his mother’s voice remained in the back of his head.  _

 

_ All good lies must start with truth. _

 

 

****-** **

 

  
  


Miranda Barlow was no ordinary human, this much Silver knew.

 

No witch he’d ever seen had magic like hers. No witch had an aura that looked like death itself shrouded around her shoulders.

 

She watched him with her dark, knowing eyes and Silver could only stare back, mesmerized by the call of her magic. At least until Flint barked at him to get below deck and see to his duties like a proper ship’s cook should. Was happy to obey to get away from Miranda’s piercing gaze and the soft, fluttering presence of the girl who sat beside her.

 

Was happy to skulk in the galley and listen to the gossip of the ship and keep as far away from Flint as possible, since he seemed to be in an ever worsening mood the closer the drew to Charles Towne. Why he was so ornery when he’d proposed this plan in the first place, Silver couldn’t figure out.

 

Still, she found him one night as he paced the decks below, thinking of what could be done to keep this plan from blowing up in all their faces. Literally. Turns the corner to find her standing there, tidy as as can be, hands clasped as she looks at him.

 

“You must be the little witch James keeps talking about so much,” she says and Silver can’t help but scowl at her.

 

“Madam, I am neither little nor a witch.”

 

“One of those is a lie,” she says, looking amused. “And it was not the latter. You have no reason to fear me, though I can see why you would rather your crew not know. Even when sailors have magic of their own, they are a superstitious bunch. Witches to them have always meant bad luck, even though it’s us they’ve always brought their talismans and their ropes to for good luck to be cast upon them.”

 

“What are you?” he asks, tilting his head as he looks at her. Even down here in the dark of the hold she has the same strange, dark presence about her.

 

“What do you mean?” she asks, frowning softly as she looks at him. “I am a witch, same as you.”

 

“I’ve never met a witch as powerful as you,” he says. “Nor one with such a presence about them. Your aura, it’s like a muder of crows about you.”

 

She looks startled by that and Silver realizes that she must not be able to see it. HIs brow furrows as he squints, perhaps wanting to blame it on a trick of the light, but the presence about her does not leave.

 

“You’re saying it’s about me now?” she asks.

 

“Yes, plain as day. Or, well, it would be if it was daytime. Why?”

 

“Nothing,” she says, too quickly. “I’m simply interested in things that others can do that I cannot. It’s been quite some time since I’ve met someone near my own power as well. I was curious is all. James has spoken quite a bit about you. He’s nervous around magic you see, leftover navy training I’m afraid.”

 

Silver simply stares at her. He does not believe for one moment she came down here to make small talk about the captain, whose first name was apparently James.

 

“What do you really want, Lady Hamilton?” he asks softly and she straightens up at the mention of that name.

 

“I want to know if I can trust you with Flint. If it’s acceptable to have another witch around. I can see though that while you’re smart, you’re untrained.”

 

“It happens,” Silver bites out. “Not all of us are born wealthy and with an endless amount of tutors.”

 

“Quite right,” she says. “I was raised on a bankrupt estate with only my father to teach me, as my mother had run back under the hill not three hours after I was born, so I quite understand having to learn how to survive in this world Mr. Silver.”

 

“Half fae,” he muses. “That doesn’t surprise me Lady Hamilton.”

 

“My mother was a human who got trapped on the other side,” she says swiftly. “She couldn’t stay in this world with me or my father even if she wanted to. You’d do well to remember that even out here at sea, they'll tempt you.”

 

She leans down to peer into Silver’s eyes and for the first time in his life, Silver does not see a way out. Her gaze holds him for a long moment until she seems to find what she’s looking for.

 

“Your mother named you well,” she says with a grin. “I can see the moon in you. Silver. I do hope you’ll take one of the pardons once James and I negotiate for them. I’d quite like to know you better.”

 

Silver is taken aback. Usually people are eager to be away from him after meeting him for the first time. Even with the gold in the back of his mind, he can’t help but smile back at her.

 

“Lady Hamilton, I would be delighted,” he says. 

 

“How did you know?” she asks. “That name I mean. I don’t think I’ve said it to many. Certainly not aboard this ship.”

 

“I hear most things worth knowing,” he says. “A childhood habit. I’m afraid I just can’t help myself.”

 

“You’d be a good liar if you weren’t so condescending Mr. Silver,” she says, and there’s a look on her face that’s almost amused. “But I did actually come down here to ask you a favor.”

 

“Me?” he asks.

 

“Yes, you,” she says. “I know I said you were untrained, but you are powerful. I need someone like you to help me.”

 

“How could I possibly help you?”

 

“If something were to happen to me,” she says. “I would need you to take my place in guarding Flint’s life.”

 

“Why would anything happen to you?” he asks, puzzled. “And why are you asking this of me? The captain can hardly stand me.”

 

“Because I don’t have a lot of choice,” she says softly, looking sad almost. “And James is....someone who needs someone like me around. Since I assume you’re still interested in the Urca gold, I can at least trust you to ensure his survival for that.”

 

Silver nods. It’s the first thing she’s said that’s made even a bit of sense.

 

“That I can do,” he says. “Though how I’m supposed to guard his life, I don’t know. I can hardly wield a sword.”

 

“That’s not the sort of protection he needs,” she says. “I have placed several spells on him that you, with your abilities, have no doubt noticed. All you need do is give them some of your magic to keep them in place.”

 

The very thought makes Silver grimace and Miranda gives him another soft look. Reaches out to cup his cheek. Her hand is surprisingly soft and warm, and he can’t help but lean into the touch just a bit.

 

“I know what I am asking of you,” she says softly. “But he is the one person left that I love and were I not desperate to keep him that way I would not be down here asking you.”

 

“Lady Hamilton, you know witches need not ask each other for something more than once,” Silver murmurs. “I was not trained, but I know the rules. Should something miraculously get past your power or Flint, I will make sure to keep an eye on him. If only because I think it’s fun to watch you boss him around.”

 

“I’m in your debt,” Miranda says. “You are free to demand of me what you want in return.”

 

“I only want to  _ be _ free,” Silver says. “From this life and from the sea and no offense, from Flint and from this crew. So all that I ask is that you do your best to succeed while you’re in Charles Towne.”

 

“Then I swear I will,” she says. “Goodnight Mr. Silver.”

 

She turns and leaves just as quickly as she appeared and Silver is suddenly reminded very much of Flint. The way she moves, with that same grace and self assurance. It makes sense now, why she would choose him as hers.

 

He hopes that one day he can ask her how they met. A witch an a sea captain. It could be something out of a fairytale.

 

 

-

 

 

Charles Town does not go well.

 

In fact, it could be stated that things go so fucking bad that Silver is willing to jump into the ocean  and swim to the nearest island and live on clams if it means getting away from this mess. 

 

Charles Vane’s men have other ideas.

 

Ideas that turn into blood and shouting and fire, fire, fire. The sound of canons in the distance as Vane’s quartermaster demands he give him names for members of the crew who can sail this ship

 

Ideas that turn into threats that rain down on him, held down by men covered in tattoos that reek of a foul, rotted magic. Iron against skin. Iron against bone. He screams and still he won’t give them the names.

 

He will not choose.

 

He’s rewarded when the crew smash through the doors and kill the men holding him down. Cursed when they take him below just to be held down on another table. Forced to watch Howell lay out tools that only spell disaster.

 

“Surely it can’t be that bad?” he asks and the men are silent. “Sure you’ve all seen worse. It’s just a broken bone.”

 

“Do you want me to clear the room?” Howell asks and Silver wants to scream. 

 

Tries to sit up but he’s held down by a number of hands, men murmuring at him as though any bit of them could be soothing.

 

“Why would I want you to clear the room?” he asks, though he already knows the answer.

 

“Some men lose control of their faculties during amputation,” Howell says.

 

“I don’t want this,” Silver says, even as the crew refuses to leave and they hold him down. Tries to use his magic, but it only makes them hold on more.

 

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I do not fucking want this!” 

 

The room shakes with the power of his words and some of the men are thrown back, but already Howell’s blade biting into his leg. Already Silver’s voice is gone from screaming so loud, his pleades of  _ NO NO NO NO _ falling silent from his lips. Fire races up his leg and to the rest of his body, magic screaming at the loss of flesh, at the lost of a piece of itself. The very air roared with the fire of his pain, though it was hard to tell over the sound of the cannons firing above.

 

When the pain finally overtakes him and black starts to creep in at the corners of his vision, Silver lets it take him. 

 

Closes his eyes and can only pray he doesn’t wake.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_ This is what happens after. After his mother is dead, hidden beneath the earth. After fire consumes the house and everyone he knows is taken away. After the earth opens up beneath the feet of an army fighting for a crown that should not belong to any of their countries. _

 

_ After  _ **_it_ ** _ happens. _

 

_ After they took and took and took from him until there was nothing left. _

 

_ He takes a knife and cuts his his hair. Looks himself in the eye as he destroys the evidence. Tears his hair out by the root and still it grew back. Over and over again until he was surrounded by a nest of blood and and dark red hair. Hair he’d gotten from his mother. A blessing, to look so much like her when it would never known who his father was. _

 

_ It’s like being forced to live under an open flame. _

 

_ He lays down and clawed at his skin, begging to be freed from it. Begging for something new.  _

 

_ Something that did not remember. _

 

_ Something that was not ashamed. _

 

_ So his blood sang and his hair grew long and dark, curling like vines. His jaw cracked as it slotted back into place. His skin crawled as his body changed, scars and bruises healing until nothing was there. His mouth opens, lies crawling out to form a mask. _

 

_ He sat up and turned to look in the mirror and saw a stranger. _

 

_ Whole and healthy. There is no hunger cutting into the line of his cheek. No blood in his mouth from trying not to make a sound.  _

 

_ He reaches out and touches the mirror and it ripples beneath his hand. Shows him someone, something, lurking on the other side. Sees how he looked before, thin and sallow and devoid of any desire to live. _

 

_ He recoils, stumbling away from it as he watches the mirror ripple with more images. Images too awful to look at, so full of blood and fear and heartache.  _

 

_ He hurls a broken piece of furniture at the mirror and watches it shatter, face divided into a hundred pieces. A thousand blue eyes stare back at him and all Silver can remember is that long ago, the same eyes looked at him, cloudy with death as his mother’s body was covered in a shroud. _

 

_ Thinks that perhaps it was those eyes that cursed him to always seek out love when he could not keep. _

 

_ So he decided to make them look for something else. Something that could conquer love. Something that had value no one could deny. _

 

_ Set his eyes upon a future full of freedom and did not look back. _

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter two!!! Thank you for your patience. Chapter three will be up soon! Season 3 & 4 just have too much content for one chapter.

_Everyone knows that what belongs to the sea can never belong to anyone else._

 

_This was true of both James Flint and his life._

 

_Many years ago, there was a boy who was born on the sea. His hair was as red as a morning sky before a storm, and his eyes were a cloudy green to match._

 

_He had a mother and a father, who were taken by the sea not long after he was born, so he fell into the hands of his grandfather instead. A stern man. A man who looked at this child who was calm nowhere but where it smelled of salt, and knew he would not be happy anywhere else. Taught him how to sail before he even knew his letters, but those would soon follow. A boy loved by the sea and too smart for his own good._

 

_Yes, Darby McGraw knew of these sorts of people. This was Padstow after all, and no matter how much London tried, they could not keep the magic here tame and controlled: t was in the stones of the houses and the dirt of the roads; The very sea itself was a shocking turquoise, lively with sunlight unlike the dreary gray of the capital and the murky depths of the Thames._

 

_He knew his grandson would flounder in a place like that, though he held no magic of his own. So he put him on the boats as soon as he was strong enough to tie a knot, hoping to cure the restlessness of a smart man, the violence of struggling against being poor in a world where wealth ruled over everything._

 

_It was this escape that would save James McGraw’s life, though he did not know it yet._

 

_Even during his time in London after his grandfather died as those dreary skies sapped the sunlight from his skin, it was out at sea where he felt calmest. Was serene, even in the middle of battle, for the tides still crooned a sweet lullaby of waves against the hull, just like when he was born._

 

_So when London does finally take everything from him, splitting open his chest and carving out his heart, it is to the sea he runs, giving himself to her waters to take the pain._

 

_To turn it into rage._

 

 

****-** **

 

 

Fever took Silver for days after he lost his leg. Left him tossing and turning in pain and crying out in a language only he understood. Strange vowels curling across his tongue as his magic worked tirelessly to heal the horrific wound to his leg.

 

When he finally wakes, it’s to Flint’s sharp gaze fixed upon him. Silver watches him approach, a strange expression on his face. It’s not a scowl, too soft for that, but Flint looks fragile somehow. Like the barest hint of bad news would tear him apart.

 

He hands Silver a cup of rum before he sits down and Silver eagerly takes it, his leg screaming with pain despite how he can feel his magic try to dull it. Despite how he’d kicked and fought for the crew to let him die, here he sat anyways. He’s barely listening to Flint speak, staring at the empty space where the rest of his leg should be, but at the word quartermaster his head jerks up.

 

Flint gives him an awful, proud look that’s just gentle enough to make Silver want to scream. Grips his cup until his knuckles turn white, trying not to shake at the outrage of it all.

 

“I didn’t ask for this,” he says.

 

“Yet they made you quartermaster anyways,” says Flint, smirking. “You should be proud. It’s not an election to take lightly, nor an achievement to be overlooked after gaining the position in such a short period of time.”

 

Flint seems almost fond. Fond, when the reason Silver has no leg is because they went to Charles Towne. Because he was fool enough to care about a crew of pirates. Stupid enough to not just have let them run a sword throug hhim when he still worked on the merchant ship. How was he to be a quartermaster with only one leg?

 

“I have something to tell you,” he says, looking up at Flint. “About the gold.” 

 

He lies.

 

Lies and watches fury rise in Flint like a great swell of fire, until it seems that he’s alight with it.

 

“Is that so?” he says after Silver finishes telling him how the gold is compromised. Silver can tell by the tone that Flint knows he’s lying.

 

He waits for Flint to draw his blade and hold it against his throat, but Flint simply clenches his jaw and stands. Turns and leaves without another word. Leaves Silver alone with the pain in his leg and the smell of the sea, both things he cannot bear. 

 

Silver lets out a cry of anguish, slamming his fist against the wood of the seat and the cabin rattles with the outburst of magic. The windows tremble as Silver seethes against everything. His leg, the sea, Flint, the crew. All of it. Rages until the glass bursts and his magic races across his body like fire, numbing everything until it reaches his mind and forces everything to be quiet. Blankets everything with silence as he’s forced back to sleep, curling away from the sunlight streaming in from the window, retreating somewhere that isn’t full of pain. 

 

Is asleep by the time the door creaks open again and Flint is left to watch as slowly, the ends of Silver’s hair turn red.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

He’s brought to Max’s place to convalesce, smuggled in under cover of darkness after Silver pitched a fit so violent at the thought of being seen being carried that a crate tumbled over in the hold and knocked Muldoon over for suggesting it. He’s reckless with his magic now, uncaring that the men see him use it.

 

They’ll all know by now anyways, having watched his leg being taken. They’re wary again, but loyal. A sacrifice of blood tends to do that.

 

He doesn’t let them stay in his room for long when they visit. His magic is still at work, knitting muscle tissue together, repairing bone. He doesn’t have the reserves left to keep up his appearance. To stop his hair from fading, his face from changing. To hide the scars, thick and ugly, that criss cross his body.

 

Only Max is allowed to see, looking at him with a keen sort of understanding.

 

“Your magic must love you a lot,” she says one night as she combs oil through his hair. “For it to have changed you so. Mine did not, though I could have shed my skin like a snake if it had let me.”

 

“It’s just another thing in this life I did not ask for,” he says softly, looking away from the mirror.

 

“Yet your magic did it, so some part of you must have wanted it,” she says, combing her fingers through his hair. “Though I am sad that such a pretty color is hidden under that bird’s nest of hair you always have on your head.”

 

Silver does not look, but he knows a mop of deep, rich red curls sits atop his head. So dark it’s almost brown, like cherrywood. 

 

“I have my mother’s hair,” is all he says, shifting away from her. “It will turn back once I’ve healed enough.”

 

“Well you could hurry up,” Max says, standing and putting the comb away. “Your captain has been perched downstairs like a vulture and is driving away customers.”

 

“What?” Silver asks, turning to look at her. Does not miss the way that she cannot help but be startled a bit by his different appearance. “Why?”

 

Silver knows Mrs. Barlow is dead. Would have thought Flint would be hiding away in her house in the interior to mourn.

 

“Asking after you when he’s not staring into the same cup of rum he orders every night,” she says. “And I have half a mind to send him up here.”

 

“No!” says Silver, the vanity behind him vibrating with the output of magic it causes. “He cannot see me like this. None of the crew must.”

 

“You don’t look so different,” says Max, gathering up her comb and hair oil. “Your face is a bit more slender perhaps. Your cheekbones more pronounced. You’ve still got an enormous head and no sense.”

 

Silver manages a smirk at that. She’s not wrong. The most startling difference is his hair. Hair that’s always been complimented. Hair that got him into trouble. He cannot wait for it to be dark again.

 

“Just a few more days is all I ask,” he says and Max smiles softly.

 

“Silver, _cher_ , after this business with the gold, all you have to do is ask.”

 

“Don’t give me that shit, you’re just irritated because you have to fuck Anne in another room.”

 

“True,” she says, pursing her lips. “So hurry up and get the fuck out.” 

 

She gives him a smack on the head with her comb as she leaves, looking over her shoulder at him.

 

“You’re alive. Might as well do something with it. Otherwise you’re just a waste of magic. Maybe you could even own a business someday, like me.”

 

The door clicks shut and he leans against the back of his chair, watching his reflection in the mirror. Already his face is starting to broaden, which means he’ll be healed enough to leave. To return to the crew that has decided to make him their sainted martyr, their beloved quartermaster.

 

He makes his way to the bed and burrows into the blankets, letting sleep claim him again.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

The first time he sets foot on the Walrus with his crutch and he can feel the wood slipping against the deck, he stops down into the hold as best he can and demands Dr. Howell makes him a new leg. He gives him one that is ill fitted, but steady enough for Silver to hobble around on most days, clinging to ropes the crew put up for him. Still, some days it’s too much and he has to go seek the doctor out to treat the pain.

 

“Your wound is too new,” Howell says. “And don’t tell me anything about that magic of yours. No matter how powerful you are, it won’t keep a false leg from reopening your wound from constant friction because you’re too stubborn to see sense.” 

 

“Then I will make do,” he says, stubbornly jamming his stump into the wooden part of the leg, gritting his teeth at the sharp burst of pain it gives him.

 

“Your pride will kill you Mr. Silver.”

 

“So I’ve been told,” he says. “Just like your empathy will be the death of you, as I’m sure people have said to you.”

 

Howell scowls him and waves his hand, shooing him back up on deck.

 

“Go on, go keep our fool of a captain in line. See if you can get him to see sense if you can’t do it for yourself.”

 

“If I could get him to see sense, I’d have to be a miracle worker,” Silver says dryly, looking over his shoulder. “And I am only a simple witch. Bound by the laws of what nature will let me do and Flint is not something that falls within those realms, unfortunately.” 

 

He does not know that when he said that, Flint would take it as a challenge.

 

The storm he sails them into is a ship killer. A maelstrom that puts out such vicious, merciless energy that Silver can feel dread race up his spine as they hit the first whitecap waves kicked up by the storm. The slide of the ship up one side of the waves and down the other as rain lashes down is enough to send him belowdecks, not keen on slipping on the water and being sent overboard. The sea does not like him as it does Flint, would probably let Silver drown as a favor.

 

It tears them apart, physically and mentally. Batters the ship into pieces, takes men overboard, drowns Muldoon in front of Silver. As if the storm has manifested to show Silver what it is to be Captain Flint. What it must feel like to be torn apart by fury, never given any rest. Silver feels helpless in the face of it, crammed into the hold with the rest of the crew as they trust Flint to guide the ship through this and bring out every lucky talisman they have to ensure their survival.

 

It’s the silence that wakes Silver, curled into his hammock and fast asleep from sheer exhaustion. He’d been so tired that he’d carved a lucky sigil beneath his hammock into the deck and climbed in, too tired to give a shit anymore. Had fallen asleep and dreamt of pale hands in the water tearing at his flesh, of the sea swallowing the Walrus with everyone on board, the sacrifice of his leg having been for nothing as the crew sank to the bottom of the ocean. 

 

Still, it is the silence that wakes him. The stillness of the ship, so long filled with the howling of the wind and the steady drip of water, is deafening. He lazily rolls himself out of his hammock, glad that as quartermaster he’s afforded his own small cabin so he can sprawl on the floor of it and crawl over to his leg with all the enthusiasm of a dead snake. Hauls himself up before he jams his leg into the boot, making his way up to the deck to find that the storm has long since passed.

 

In fact, there’s not a hint of wind to be found anywhere.

 

“The doldrums,” says De Groot beside him. “We’re becalmed.”

 

“That can’t be. Surely someone can at least call up a breeze. Someone has to have something we can use.”

 

“None of us can control the weather Mr. Silver,” says De Groot. “Not even you, with your fancy new quartermaster title or those magic powers of yours. No, we are at the mercy of the sea out here lad.”

 

“More like we’re at the mercy of Captain Flint,” Silver mutters, turning to look at him leaning against the railing as though he hadn’t just singlehandedly steered the ship through a maelstrom. 

 

“Are they not the same thing?” De Groot says, with a mirthless grin. “Isn’t that what people say?”

 

Silver doesn’t respond, too busy watching Flint watch the sea, and De Groot eventually wanders off to go bother the crew. It’s true though. If the sea has abandoned them, it means Flint has done something to displease Her. Not once can Silver remember this ship ever being at such a disadvantage.

 

“Well Captain,” he says, walking over to stand beside him. “I hope that ride through the storm was worth it.”

 

“It will all be worth it in the end,” Flint says without looking at him. 

 

Silver wishes he could believe him.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_James McGraw was a boy who did not fit in. Even from a young age he was too serious or too well read. Too pensive as he stared down at a dead dog lying in the grass, maggots crawling across its eyes. Too boisterous when he picked fights for no reason other than being angry at not being accepted._

 

_A boy with no magic and no parents in a town where magic and family meant everything was a lonely boy and lonely boys always end up in trouble. Whether it be for fighting or something else, they cannot seem to bear being alone. To be without touch or words or feeling._

 

_An emptiness that has only been filled once, by the gentle smile the boy next door gave him after returning his sister home from school. Another thing for which he was made to feel alone. This love inside of him that seemed too big for one person. That spread to every smile he was given, even bit of affection handed out._

 

_Yes, James McGraw was a creature of love and though he did not know it yet, this too was a type of magic._

 

 

****-** **

 

 

The sea has always been the domain of those who were cast aside by society. Opened her arms to welcome the worthless, the unwanted, the wicked. Held them as a mother would as they sank beneath her waves.

 

Some see it another way.

 

Think the sea belongs to those full of rage. Of anger and want and revenge. Those who are wild with feeling and too passionate to be contained by the boundaries of land. It’s always been where Flint’s most comfortable. Where he can be the brutal, sharp man he is on the inside without holding back.

 

Silver knows this, because it’s as if a weight is lifted from Flint the moment the Walrus weighs anchor. As though he too is freed by the lift of it.

 

It’s not what it feels like as they head for the carcass of a whale, rotten and foul even from the distance they’re at now. No, this feels like two wild animals have been put in a boat and sent out to fight to see which gets to rule the other.

 

Silver is tired of being at the mercy of the sea.

 

Spits words that he knows will strike Flint where it hurts the most, in his pride, and bares verbal teeth at the back of Flint’s throat. 

 

“You know, I've had my fill of hearing you go on about this crew being too weak to keep up with you. Some of them may be weaker than you, some of them may be less smart, but don't you for a second believe I fit that description. Whatever happens out here, one thing is certain. You will account for _me_.”

 

A pulse of magic ripples  into the water despite how weak he is from lack of food and water to remind Flint that of the two out here, he is at the disadvantage.

 

“Why are you telling me this?” Flint asks without turning around.

 

“So you can decide,” Silver says. “You can fight me, perhaps even kill me, but even if you do manage to haul yourself back to the ship by yourself, you’ll still starve to death just like the rest of the men. Or you can acknowledge that you and I would be a hell of a lot better off as partners than as rivals.”

 

“You conceived all of this? The cover story, the end game, on the jetty? Waiting for the scouts to return?”

 

“Yes,” Silver says. “All of it.”

 

“What did you do with your share?” Flint asks. Silver shuts his eyes, willing the sea to just kill him now.

 

“I gave up my claim to it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I couldn’t keep it and remain part of this crew,” he says.

 

_Because I swore an oath to Miranda to keep an eye on you._

 

“And without these men, all I am is an invalid.”

 

“You’re the most powerful witch I’ve known since Miranda,” Flint says, turning to look at him. “So that’s a load of horseshit.”

 

But before he can accuse Silver of lying, the stench of the whale reaches them and they’re distracted by the ensuing shark chase. Something that gives Silver a thrill he hasn’t felt since they hit the doldrums and not just because it means they’re going to get to eat.

 

“Again?” Flint asks, turning to look at him and Silver can’t help but laugh. Feels lighter somehow as they make their way back to the ship with the shark, like the terrible weight has been lifted from them.

 

Later, as the crew eats their fill of shark, Silver feels the first bit of a breeze kiss his skin and as he looks up the sails of the ship begin to unfurl. The ship begins to move faster and Silver thinks if they had any energy, the crew would let out a cry of joy, but for now there is only a great sigh of relief.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_Ghosts have been here as long as humans have. Dead things that do not know they are dead._

 

_Or perhaps they do. No one knows where they came from or why some people moved on and others didn’t. Why some spirits manifested nearly as whole as they were when alive and others as only a whisper of a presence, the flicker of a shadow out of the corner of your eye._

 

_The only thing people knew is that sometimes they spoke and only some people could hear them. Those with the sight. Mediums. People who were particularly lonely. Those so deep in grief they did not belong among the living._

 

_Flint has always been surrounded by ghosts. His parents. His grandfather. Himself. The past cloaks him like a second skin, always there guiding his every move. Thomas and Miranda only add to it. To the voices urging him to do this. To wage this war against a civilization that seeks to make ghosts out of the living._

 

_To take and take and take until there is nothing left to give._

 

_It’s what makes him willing to walk into the dark. To step forward and volunteer himself to speak to the queen of the island they’ve landed on. To die._

 

_To walk into the chasm that has opened up before him. To finally be back in the arms he’s missed so dearly._

 

_But that’s not how it works._

 

_A ghost is a lost soul and one does not have to be dead to be lost._

 

 

****-** **

 

 

They fall upon the shores of an island that looks to be deserted, the beach quiet and empty and the thick forest full of only birds and small reptiles. The forest means there’s water nearby and in their haste to get to it, perhaps the crew is less cautious than they should have been.

 

Silver can’t complain though. It feels good to be on land again. To have the knowledge that they are not trapped and condemned to die at the mercy of the sun. That his leg, which had grown more red and irritated with every day they were stuck in the doldrums, could now be cleaned with fresh water instead of murky salt water. Water that Flint himself had fetched for him, bringing it over to Silver as if to apologize for how he’d been acting.

 

It’s soothing to him almost as much as the water is, to have Flint back beside him discussing plans. To plot a course of action together is as familiar as breathing.

 

The appearance of the island’s inhabitants interrupts that sense of peace, but Silver can’t find it in himself to be surprised. Their luck hasn’t been the greatest as of late and being corralled into a hidden village of maroons seems like something typical of this. The amount of magic teeming in the air around them as they’re lined up for the queen to inspect makes Silver’s skin itch. It’s different from Nassau’s chaotic energy, more focused and less inviting. This is a place to tread lightly.

 

It is also not a place to step out of line, as the queen proves when she decides to lock them up in cages and interrogate them one by one. The spells on the cage are unfamiliar to Silver and the way Joji is thrown back against the opposite side of the cage when he tries to break one on the locks is enough to keep him from trying to undo them. He settles in to wait and think of a way out, listening as Billy and Flint debate over whether to make a run for it after the man named Ben Gunn tells them what awaits them.

 

When he catches sight of the younger woman who had stood beside the queen earlier, he remembers how she’d looked at them with more curiosity than animosity. Is looking up at them now, her eyes meeting Silver’s as she tilts her head to study him. Turns away without another glance after a moment, but it’s enough for Silver to think that perhaps not all the villagers are in agreement about them.

 

“What about that one?” he asks Ben Gunn. He comes over to look beside Silver and he sighs.

 

“The daughter. Next in line from the deference she’s shown.”

 

Silver smiles to himself, already coming up with a plan.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

Silver first knows something is wrong when he gets back from his meeting with the queen’s daughter by the way Flint is staring out into the darkness, the slouch of his shoulders awkward and not at all like how he usually stands.

 

“Where are you?” he asks softly and Flint turns to him with a look so dead and defeated that Silver is gripped by a fear he hasn’t felt since they took his leg.

 

“Trying to remember,” Flint says softly. “How long it’s been since we’ve left Nassau.”

 

He puts a hand to his chest and suddenly Silver understands.

 

Lunges forward to pry open Flint’s shirt and look at the old scars on his chest. They’ve turned an ugly purple color, the skin around them a lurid red and he turns to to Flint in disbelief.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says. “I can fix this!”

 

“Not this,” Flint says softly. “Miranda kept me from dying both times. With her gone-”

 

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Silver hisses, pressing his hand against Flint’s chest. “God, the fact that she made me swear to look after you is the worst thing about this! She didn’t even tell me that you would _die_ if she did! Has this been going on since Miranda died?” 

 

Flint is speechless as Silver works his magic into his skin and Silver glares up at him.

 

“This is _my_ magic and you owe me. I don’t even have any energy left. So you’d better pull your head out of your ass and start thinking of a way out of here or consider what I told you about the princess.”

 

“I’m still your captain,” Flint says half heartedly, his breath easing as his wounds start to heal under Silver’s hand. “You should show me some respect.”

 

“I’ll give it to you when you earn it,” Silver grumbles. “Now hold still. I think I can see your rib bone trying to poke through. Flint, that’s disgusting!”

 

Silver prattles on as he works, going over each scar until they’re shiny and pink with new skin under his hand, if only to distract himself from the way Flint watches him as he does.

 

“You asked where I was,” Flint interrupts after a while. “Let me tell you.”

 

Silver stops for a moment, not sure if it’s wise to let Flint keep talking, but he nods for him to continue.

 

“I told you I was certain pardons would eliminate all resistance in Nassau and you asked me how I was so certain. It’s because I helped build them.”

 

“What?”

 

“Peter Ashe, Miranda, her husband, and I….we worked to obtain a universal pardon to eliminate piracy in Nassau and restore colonial rule there. To regulate the magic there. To restore order and keep them from becoming too powerful.”

 

“How could you restore order to the magic of a place like Nassau?” Silver asks. “When there are so many different kinds of it. When it has been allowed to seep into the island itself?”

 

“Names have power,” Flint says. “You know this. We would have held their names in writing. Get enough of the less powerful to sign for a pardon that will protect them, then you have enough to move against the more powerful.”

 

“That’s….”

 

“Ruthless?”

 

“Genius,” says Silver, unable to help himself. “You would have bound their signature with magic?”

 

Flint nods. Silver shivers at the thought of such a thing.

 

“It’s how England works,” Flint continues, “And I moved away from it. Inch by inch. I forgot it all. Learned to embrace Nassau and enjoy it. The freedom of it, the unpredictability.”

 

“The violence,” Silver says quietly, pressing his hand to the long scar that bisects Flint’s chest. The duel with Singleton seems ages ago, as though it happened in another lifetime.

 

“There is violence everywhere,” Flint says. “It comes in many forms. In its way, England is more violent than Nassau.”

 

“Not just England,” Silver says bitterly. He glances over at the men, huddled together as they try to sleep, and waits a moment to make sure none of them are listening. “Where I grew up too.”

 

Flint raises his eyebrows at that, but Silver doesn’t give him anything else. Simply motions for him to continue with his story.

 

“Why are you telling me all of this?” he asks. “I gave you a way out of this. The queen’s daughter will listen to us.”

 

“I told you because here, in this cage, I’m wondering if the civilization of Nassau isn’t exactly what I was trying to achieve all those years ago. If resisting isn’t going against everything that I once understood to be good and right. To forgive. To make order of chaos. I wonder if the pardons are the victory. That for this place to survive the best thing is for me to sit still, accept the inevitable, and let this be the end of Captain Flint.”

 

“No,” Silver says, lurching forward to grab Flint by the collar of his shirt. “No, no, no, nothing is inevitable here. I am showing you a way-”

 

“You’re new to this, being responsible for men’s lives,” Flint interrupts. “To being in a situation that your words and your magic cannot get you out of. I know what the queen is facing and she will not let us live in order to protect what she has.”

 

“You cannot know that,” Silver says. “And now, you can’t just sit here and rot to death so you’d better start thinking of a way out of here.”

 

Flint goes to protest but Silver just tugs his shirt back up and pushes him away, curling up in the corner away from him. He hears Flint grumble to himself for a moment before turning back to look out of the bars of the cage.

 

Silver tries not to feel sick at the thought of Flint dying.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

After Flint manages to save them by the skin of his teeth, Silver finds himself working more with Madi, the queen’s daughter while Flint has long conversations with the queen. The two of them plan, trying to fit their two groups of men together in a way that will make this alliance work.

 

Learns in time that Madi is no ordinary woman, but a medium. Someone who can listen to the voices of the dead even when there is no ghost present. Can look at the living and see all the ghosts within them.

 

When Silver is with Madi he feels as though he’s stepped into the sunlight for the first time in months. She’s radiant in the power that she has, calm and steady in the way that only mediums are. 

 

At first he’s intimidated by her, as though she could look through him and see all the ghosts he’s kept locked inside. Afraid that she would tell him just how much the ones who keep him up at night truly loathed him. Wished him dead and gone so they could finally be at peace.

 

She doesn’t though, the day she reveals his ghosts to him. She simply takes his hand in hers and gives him a pensive, understanding look.

 

“The one you killed?” she says softly. “The boy from long ago? You didn’t. He’s still alive and well.”

 

Silver can hardly breathe when she tells him that. When she places her hand on his chest right where his heart is. It’s the closest she’s ever gotten during one of their meetings. Watches him with her warm, dark eyes for a moment before she leans down to press her forehead against his.

 

“John Silver, no one ever prepared you for this, did they?” she asks and he shakes his head before going still, afraid that she’ll leave if he moves her too much. “To rule? To guide? Even with all those ghosts loose in your head?”

 

“No, they didn’t,” he says softly. “How did your mother put it? A fool of a boy with too much power and no sense.”

 

Madi laughs, bright and clear and Silver thinks he could fall in love with that sound. Might already have. 

 

“A man with power who doesn’t abuse it,” she says softly, making her way towards the door. “A man who might be smart enough to know that my favorite flowers are hibiscus, and some grow near the river behind my house.”

 

It’s a bright thing, what he feels towards Madi. Soft and new next to Flint in his heart, though he’s still hesitant to acknowledge the latter even as a friend. The thing between them is still fragile and with Flint away looking to gain support among Teach’s men, Silver has time to think about it on his own.

 

“So that’s it?” he asks. “Flowers? Not the promise of an army?”

 

“Flint will bring me that,” she says with a shrug. “Maybe I want more from you.”

 

“More?” he asks. “Isn’t that less than an army? A war?”

 

“From you?” she says, stepping away. “No, it’s not, and I know that. Can see it in your eyes. It goes along well with your stubbornness and pride about your leg.”

 

His leg, which is freshly wrapped and has a number of foul smelling herbs slathered on it thanks to her.

 

“Is that what you came here to lecture me about? My pride and how I should be bringing you flowers? That’s not a very good way to court someone princess.”

 

“I’m not courting you,” Madi says, crossing her arms. 

 

“I think you are,” he says, hauling himself up and grabbing his crutch. “I also think I’d like to take a walk. You’re welcome to join me your highness.”

 

“Madi,” she says, linking her arm with his. “You may call me Madi, Mr. Silver.”

 

“John,” he says and she gives him a look out of the corner of her eye. She’s good at telling when he’s lying.

 

“John is your name now, isn’t it?” she asks and he nods. “So I will call you John.”

 

The way she says it is soft and warm and he can feel the name settle into place over him. The first time it’s truly felt like a name since he said it all those months ago.

 

“Tell me,” says Madi as they walk, “Your captain. There is a strange energy about him, why is that?”

 

“Oh, is that it? You’re after our secrets and weaknesses?” he asks with a quirk of his mouth. “I’m not so easily plied for those.”

 

“I simply wish to know what kind of man it is that you’ve chosen to follow. He feels strange, not full of dark magic. I’m curious.”

 

Silver hesitates to tell her the truth. That without him, Flint would be dying right now. That he swore to Miranda to look after him and so now he must. That even if he hadn’t, he’s still more invested in Flint’s wellbeing than he should be.

 

“It’s my magic that you feel upon him,” he says eventually. “I swore to another witch, one who favored him, that I would protect him should something happen to her. She was killed, so now her task has fallen to me.”

 

“I see. What exactly is it you’re protecting him from?”

 

“Himself, mostly,” says Silver. “He’s a brilliant tactician, but he has no sense of self preservation. Can believe in a cause more than anyone I know, but he’s slow to trust people.”

 

“Yet he trusts you,” Madi says. “Left you here amongst us to solidify the alliance with us.”

 

“We’ve been through a lot together. It’s good that he trusts me.”

 

“Do you trust him?”

 

“Yes,” says Silver, pausing to lean over and pluck a single bloom from one of the plants growing next to the path. It’s not a hibiscus, but as he holds it in his hand, it blooms into a soft, white frangipani flower.

 

He holds it out to Madi, who takes it and brings it close to smell it, closing her eyes at the sweet scent.

 

“I trust him with this war, your highness. With myself? I’m not so sure yet.”

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_There is freedom in the dark._

 

_It is the dark that holds the unwanted, the afraid. The dark that hides them away from prying eyes. The dark is what keeps the deepest of secrets. That is what can make the dark dangerous, not knowing what it holds. Not knowing what you’re capable of when no one is looking. When no one can see your face._

 

_The dark has always welcomed Flint. Wound its way around his heart to seek out any bit of pain it could find and he’s had no shortage of that in his life. Held plenty of shame in his heart for it feed on, for the dark to keep him in its clutches._

 

_Then, suddenly, there was light._

 

_Everywhere he looks is cast in it, like sunlight through the forest canopy.  Miranda Hamilton takes his hand and says not every secret should be kept. Thomas Hamilton takes his heart and says the shame it holds is not justified. Together they showed him that not everything hidden in the shadows was bad. Gave him everything only to be torn away in an instant._

 

_Now the dark holds only memories, the ghosts of loving caresses and soft murmurings. The only light present is that of the moon, which only serves to highlight the absences around him. Leaves him wandering the earth in search of something, anything, to fill the void left by everyone he’s lost. By the pieces of himself cast aside to do what needed to be done to gain revenge._

 

_You are not alone, Miranda had whispered to him out in the doldrums. He hadn’t believed her. He’d felt as isolated as the Walrus adrift on the motionless sea. As though he was locked in an unlit room with no way out._

 

_Now though, a door has been opened, pried apart by words and a war._

 

 

****-** **

 

 

Silver did not know how easy it would be to follow Flint down this path.

 

To let violence wrap around him like a silken cloak and cast a shadow on everything he did. To embrace the darkness that so often seemed to take hold of Flint and compel him to do such awful things.

 

He walks into the tavern with Billy feeling an odd sort of excitement, his magic vibrating under his skin at the thought of holding these men accountable for the oaths they made. Curls his fingers around the book full of their names and calls up the power in knowing them.

 

Makes his way around the tavern, aware that they’re all staring at his leg, at the lean, hungry look he knows he and Billy still have from the doldrums. Curls his lip when Dufresne steps forward from the shadows to confront him.

 

The moment he calls him half a man, Silver has decided to kill him. Lets him talk as he makes his way over to the table, magic seething under his skin. Wraps his fingers around the handle of a tankard, pausing for a moment to take a breath, before he turns on his heel and hits Dufresne across the face with all the strength he can muster. 

 

The satisfaction he feels at watch Dufresne drop to the floor after one blow should concern him, but all he does is walk over to look down at him. Sneers in the exact same way Dufresne had looked at him only a moment ago. Lifts his peg leg and holds it over Dufresne’s head and brings it down with a ferocity that will horrify him later.

 

Again.

 

And again.

 

And again.

 

Leaves Dufresne an unrecognizable, bloody mess on the floor and looks up at the people around him. Can feel blood on his face but doesn’t do anything to wipe it away.

 

“Tomorrow you will join us,” he says, letting magic seep into his voice. Feels the building shake with the power of his words. “Or you will be looking over your shoulders for the rest of your lives. My name is Long John Silver, and I have a long fucking memory.”

 

He wants to say I will remember every single one of your faces. Every single name written in this book. I will remember and so too will my magic.

 

Instead, he turns without another word and makes his way out of the tavern, Billy following behind. There’s a look of concern on his face but Silver ignores it. Makes his way into the dark to hide the way disgust is starting to crawl up his throat, horror at what he’s just done clawing at the back of his mind like a panicked animal.

 

He manages to keep his composure only because what he’d done to Dufresne has ignited the pain in his leg, so sharp and deep in his bone that it’s all he can do not to collapse onto the sand and cry out.

 

“Silver?” Billy says from beside him, voice laced with worry, and the concern makes Silver’s hackles raise.

 

“Take me back to the ship,” he snarls, shifting away from the hand Billy tries to put on his shoulder. “And don’t fucking touch me.”

 

The crew that came with them give him as much space as they can in the longboat back to the Walrus and Silver doesn’t blame them. He feels on edge, like he could fly apart at the seams at any moment, like if someone touches him he could tear them to pieces. It’s a frightening feeling and he’s eager to get below decks to hide from it.

 

To hide from the fact that no matter how terrifying, it feels good too. Powerful and intoxicating. 

 

When he finally does make it below deck, however, he’s not alone for long. After Howell has inspected his leg, Flint comes into the room where Silver is, approaching with the same sort of caution everyone else seems to have. Silver knows it’s because of the aura his magic is giving off, but he still finds it irritating.

 

“You alright?” Flint asks and Silver sighs, closing his eyes.

 

“I didn’t feel it when I did it, or when we made our escape, but I feel it now,” he says, rubbing at his leg.

 

“I’m not talking about your leg.”

 

Silver turns to look at Howell, who takes the hint and makes a hasty retreat from the room. Flint moves closer once he’s gone and places his hand on Silver’s back, between his shoulder blades. Immediately the storm inside him quiets down and Silver lets out a sigh.

 

“I know how you’re feeling,” Flint says softly. “You were right, when you told me about the toll it’s taken on me. The effects of losing Miranda.”

 

“I thought it was sorrow,” Silver says, leaning back against his hand. “I thought it was loneliness and grief and even terror at what you were becoming.”

 

He remembers the way Flint had seemed so apathetic at times and yet frightened of himself at others. Like he didn’t want to care about what he was doing, but couldn’t deny it.

 

“I didn’t know it would feel like this,” Silver whispers, turning to look at Flint. “I didn’t expect this element of it.”

 

“What?”

 

“How good it feels,” Silver says, nearly choking on the words. “It feels good and my magic wants more. It was to be let out, to destroy. I want to curse everything. I want to tear it apart and cause chaos and revel in it. I want to be _monstrous_.” 

 

Flint watches him sharply, green eyes roving across Silver’s face, assessing. 

 

“You think you want it,” Flint says finally, “But you know very well you’d hate it. You hate it now, this feeling. You hate the way your magic wants it, but what it wants is the carelessness, the ferocity that you felt. It wants the emotions, not the violence itself.”

 

Silver hates that Flint knows him so well. That he can read him like an open book.

 

“What if I liked it? The way his skull felt when I smashed it in?”

 

“You liked the satisfaction of letting out your anger,” Flint says. “Not the killing. You’ve never liked it. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you avoid it if you can. The face you make when I do. You hate spilling blood.”

 

Silver does. Hates the smell of it. The sight of it. Cannot be in the same room as a dead body and the awful, bleak emptiness of them. 

 

“Not this time. Not when he called me half a man. An invalid.”

 

Flint’s hand slides up to squeeze his shoulder before he moves away. Comes to stand in front of Silver, arms behind his back and shoulders held straight as though he’s getting ready to address a line of soldiers, the navy still clinging to him like a shadow.

 

“You know those things to not be true,” Flint says with an authority that would make other men stand to attention. “You could be bedridden and still not be an invalid.”

 

“If I were bedridden I’d be dead,” Silver spits. “And I am still half a man.”

 

“Men are not men by halves or quarters or wholes,” Flint says. “Your body is missing a piece, true, but that does not make you a man. It does not make you less of one either. No one on this ship would stand against you now, in this moment, if you told them all to jump into the water.”

 

“Even you?” Silver asks, looking up at him. 

 

Flint steps so close that Silver can feel his body heat, leaning down so that he meets Silver’s eyes.

 

“I thanked you once, for opening a door,” Flint says. “I also followed you through it, back towards life.”

 

He reaches out and tucks a stray curl behind Silver’s ear before standing back to his full height and turning away from Silver.

 

“I need you in my cabin in a few moments, to discuss a plan involving Jack Rackham and the cache,” he says, pausing at the doorway as he waits for an answer.

 

“I’ll be there,” Silver says. “Just give me a few moments.”

 

“Take as long as you need,” Flint says. “I’ll wait.”

 

Then he’s gone and Silver isn’t sure if he feels better or worse than before he came down.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

They get the cache back, but they lose Charles Vane.

 

Succeed in luring Hornigold to the island just like Flint had planned with the queen, the entire island trembling with a nervous and anticipatory energy. Spells are woven into the defenses on the beach, traps laid in the forest, curses set by both the villagers and the more skilled members of the crew.

 

Silver finds himself in the village most of the day, helping shore up defenses and offering help where he can. Midway through the day, Madi comes to look for him, a desperate look on her face.

 

“You healed Captain Flint of his wounds,” she says softly. “Did you not? Life threatening wounds you said.”

 

“I only gave my magic to spells already in place,” he says. “It was not me who healed him.”

 

“But could you try? For my father? Our healers have done everything, but still the wound festers. It rejects every poultice they put on it. Resists every type of magic we’ve tried. Even our curse breakers have been unsuccessful.”

 

“What makes you think I will?” he asks, tilting his head. “I have no specialty, and my spellwork is limited.”

 

“You’re powerful,” she says. “That, you cannot hide. There is moonlight in your eyes.”

 

“I can try,” Silver says softly, “But I cannot promise anything.”

 

“I know,” she says. “All I’m asking is for you to try.”

 

He follows her to the hut where the king has been convalescing for the past several days, fading away from the gunshot wound to his side. Silver did not interact with him much before, only seeing him at the side of Eleanor Guthrie from afar, but now he approaches the man he’d known as Mr. Scott with caution.

 

Madi sits down next to him and takes his hand and he opens his eyes, looking over at he with what Silver can only describe as the exhaustion of the dying.

 

“Father,” she murmurs. “Mr. Silver is going to try to help heal you.”

 

“It would be a waste of magic and energy,” he gasps out. “Death has decided on me, there is no one who will deter Her.”

 

“Please just let him try,” Madi murmurs, pressing his hand against her cheek. “For me.”

 

There’s a moment, where Mr. Scott is clearly having a debate with himself, then he nods. Silver leans forward and carefully peels his bandages back, unable to hide the quick intake of breath when he sees the wound. It’s black with infection, veins a dark spiderweb pattern around it.

 

It smells of such foul poison that it makes Silver recoil, covering his nose.

 

“You say British regulars shot him?” he asks and Madi nods. “Then there must have been a sadist among them, or they’re doing more to fight against us. This is a cursed wound, it must have been put on the bullet itself. It would have been difficult to treat even with your curse breakers and medicine. Did they remove the bullet?”

 

“It shattered,” she says, shaking her head. 

 

“I will try to do my best,” he says. “But if it shattered then…”

 

“Then the poison is deep within his body,” she says, nodding. “I know. It’s as much as our healers have told us. They can feel some pieces, but have no way to get to them without killing him faster.”

 

Silver lays his hands on her father’s side and whispers to himself as he feels his hands grow hot as magic flows through them. The smell of wet earth fills the air as he works, but it soon sours into an awful, decaying smell as it enters the wound. The king arches up against his hands with a cry and some of the poison oozes out of his wound, but the wound remains open and festering.

 

Silver shakes his head and tries again, but the king reaches up and puts a hand around his wrist.

 

“Please, no more,” he says, voice rasping with the effort. “I know you can only do so much. I know magic can seem like it sometimes, but it’s not a miracle. There are limits to even what witches can do.”

 

Silver looks up at Madi, but she’s focusing on her father’s face. Has a strange look on her face before she drops his hand like she’s been burned. Hurries from the room, calling for her mother.

 

“Mr. Silver.”

 

Silver looks down again and the king is watching him with a curious look.

 

“You look so different,” he says. “Though I suppose I hardly knew you at the start of all this. You were just an annoyance. Now you are a quartermaster to Flint. A dangerous position to be in. A powerful witch.”

 

“To be fair, I didn’t sign up for the job,” Silver says, sorting through the bottles on the table next to the bed until he finds the one he’s looking for. “And it cost me half my leg.”

 

“Yet you seem to be doing a decent job of it,” he says. “My daughter seems to trust your abilities at the very least. She herself is powerful, so I would take the compliment.”

 

“I do,” says Silver, pouring out the poppy seeds into a bowl before he takes a pestle and starts to grind it. “Her trust has been hard earned and I don’t think I’m done earning it.”

 

The king watches him for a moment, eyes narrowing. Silver pours some water into the bowl, stirring it into the crushed poppyseed until it makes a paste.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

“To help with your pain,” Silver says, setting the bowl down on the table. “Take only a small bit of that when you want to sleep.”

 

“No, why are you here, in the middle of all this? With your power you could be anywhere and I know you had a hand in what happened with the gold, so that means you could have taken your share as well.”

 

“I am quartermaster of this crew,” Silver says softly. “These men have sworn an oath to me. If I leave then they will leave, war or not.”

 

“Then why do you stay?”

 

Silver glances up at Madi as she reenters the hut, her mother following close behind. In the door behind them is Flint, who must have been in a meeting with the queen. Silver looks back down at Mr. Scott, who’s staring at him with a strange look on his face.

 

“Cast your eyes away from her,” he says, gripping Silver’s sleeve. “Do not bring her into what you have with Flint. Not when everyone who has ever called that man friend has ended up worse off for it.”

 

Silver looks startled at that, trying to pull away as Madi and her mother make their way across the room.

 

“Swear it!” says the king, grip ironclad on Silver’s sleeve. “Swear it or I’ll have every magic user in this village curse you well into your time spent in the afterlife.”

 

“I swear,” Silver says. “She will not come to harm because of either of us.” 

 

The king lets him go, turning to Madi and the queen with a softer look on his face, clearly dismissing Silver.

 

“I left something for his pain,” Silver says and the queen nods at him, before she takes his place on the other side of the king.

 

He goes over to Flint, who gives him a questioning look. Silver gently pushes him out of the room.

 

“Come on, it’s best not to intrude on a dying man.”

 

 

****-** **

 

 

When Flint tells him the truth, tells him about his lost love, suddenly everything falls into place.

 

His motivations, the decisions he’s made, and the very existence of the person he is now. All of it comes together to become not a man of violence, but a man of revenge. A man torn apart by grief and put back together with rage. 

 

He is a man formed in the image of the sea.

 

“You gave yourself to the ocean,” Silver says softly. “Didn’t you? You traded something for the power that you have? The inhumanity of your anger, your sway over the men.”

 

“I have always belonged to the sea,” Flint says, eyes wildcat green in the firelight. “Just as you have always belonged to the moon.”

 

It’s the same thing Madi said. The same thing his mother once said.

 

“Why do you say that?” he asks softly and Flint reaches up to tap the corner of his eye. 

 

“You have its light in your eyes.”

 

“My eyes are blue,” Silver protests. “If you said they were like the sky I’d understand, but the moon?”

 

“Always changing, always someone different looking out at the world depending on who you need to be,” Flint says, and as he moves the lean forward, the dark seems to ripple across him like a pelt. “You manipulate men as easy as the moon moves the tides. You’re the only one who can stand beside me as an equal.”

 

“I have no equal when it comes to the men,” Silver says before he can help himself. “They listen to me more than they listen to you.”

 

“I know they do,” Flint says. “But you and I agree more often than not, so I allow it.”

 

“You captain a crew of men full of magic and superstition and loyalty and yet have no magic of your own,” Silver says. “They do not understand why you have survived so long without it. It’s why they don’t trust you.”

 

“Are you sure it’s that and not what a villain they see me to be?” Flint asks, raising an eyebrow. “The one you once thought me to be?”

 

“I’m sure it doesn’t help,” Silver says softly, “Though if they knew the truth they might understand more.”

 

“I told you about Thomas in confidence,” Flint says immediately, sitting back. “I trust it will stay that way.”

 

“Of course,” Silver says, “And I ask you do the same for what I’m about to tell you.”

 

So he tells Flint of his plan to us Dobbs to lure the redcoats into the forest, to use their advantage of terrain to the fullest. To use the island’s favor to do what may seem impossible.

 

“You would place all of this in the hands of a man who risked our very alliance?”

 

“I told you,” Silver says, “I have the trust of the men. I lost my leg for them. You think there’s no magic in that?”

 

Flint looks startled by the admission and Silver huffs out a bitter laugh, looking into the fire between them. Takes a sip of rum from the bottle between them before he speaks.

 

“Vane’s quartermaster asked me for ten names and I refused to give them. He took my leg for that. The rest of the crew should have died, were supposed to. I was supposed to give in, do what was expected of me according to my practice of self survival. I didn’t. Those men out there, quite literally, owe me their lives. They will do as they’re told.” 

 

“And me?” Flint asks, leaning in close again.

 

“After I killed Dufresne you told me that you’d follow me too,” Silver hums. “Are you saying that was a lie? Am I not the closest person to you right now?”

 

“Perhaps,” Flint says. His teeth are all that Silver can see in the firelight as he moves around to come closer to him. “Is that what you want?”

 

“I don’t know,” Silver says softly. “It’s not really a safe place to be, is it?”

 

“Are you saying it’s bad luck to be my friend?”

 

“I’m saying it’s difficult to be close to you,” Silver murmurs, reaching out to tug Flint’s collar aside to see the scar on his shoulder. Presses his hand to the knotted flesh where the bullet had pierced his skin and tastes iron in the back of his mouth at the memory of blood.

 

“Why?” Flint asks. “People have always told me that. Why is it so difficult?”

 

“Because you would sacrifice your life for an idea,” Silver whispers. “And your life is more important to me. Was more important to Miranda.”

 

“How could you know how she felt?”

 

“She told me,” Silver says, turning to tuck his face against Flint’s throat. “Just before we arrived in Charles Towne. She told me what she was trying to do.”

 

Flint cups the back of his head, fingers gently combing through Silver’s hair. Leans down to rest his cheek on the top of his head and Silver lets out a shuddering breath.

 

“You think you could be my end? After all you’ve said about swearing to Miranda to look out for me?”

 

“I won’t make the same mistakes,” Silver says, hand moving from Flint’s shoulder to the center of his chest. 

 

Flint’s heart is steadier under his palm than he would have expected, especially when Silver’s own heart is racing. Here, at the juncture of his throat and shoulder, Flint smells like the sea; like the air before a storm, heady with rain.

 

“I have survived starvation, a tempest, pirate hunters, jealous captains, mutinous crews, angry lords, a queen, a king, and the goddamn British navy. You think we’ll clash one day? Worry that someday you will have no choice but to be my end?  After all of that, you think it will be you? I wouldn’t worry too much.”

 

Silver snorts and Flint leans back to look at him. Runs his hand through Silver’s hair again, fingers catching in the ends. He gives him a long look, twisting the curls around and around his fingers for a moment and Silver goes still. Feels bile rise in the back of his throat at the curious look Flint gives his hair.

 

“I saw your hair, when you were still ill with fever,” Flint confesses, voice so soft that Silver struggles to hear him over the sound of his heart racing. “How it turned. It’s still red here at the ends. Surely you have survived worse than me.”

 

Silver flinches away from him, scrambling back across the ground. Flint looks horrified, reaching out for him but Silver swings the bottle of rum at him while he struggles to get to his feet. He hears it shatter against a log but it doesn’t deter Flint.

 

“Silver,” he says, low and soft. “Silver wait-”

 

“Stay away from me,” Silver snarls, hands clawing at the bark of a tree to help him stand. “Stay the fuck away from me!”

 

“I didn’t look!” Flint says, stopping at the edge of the clearing. “I didn’t look at your face.”

 

Silver backs away, into the shadows, into the open arms of the night. Around him the greenery closes in, hiding him from Flint’s sight.

 

“Silver-”

 

“Please,” Silver says softly, trying to keep his voice from shaking as badly as his body. “Forget what you saw and don’t speak to me of it again.”

 

“If this is going to be an issue between us, then I will. I swear it.”

 

“Swear it on the tide,” Silver says. “Swear it on your heart.”

 

He can see Flint struggle with that. Knows what it means to ask that of him. To demand this when Flint has just given something so valuable of himself.

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you,” Silver says, pressing further back into the forest. “When there is not a war to fight.”

 

“It was beautiful, your hair,” is all Flint says and Silver lets out a bitter laugh.

 

“That’s what all men say.”

 

Then he turns and flees towards the village, towards the house where Madi sleeps. Hurries inside when he sees the warm light of a candle in her window and finds her waiting for him, dressed in only a nightgown and a shawl.

 

Wordlessly she beckons him towards the bedroom and he follows, wanting to forget. To forget the warm touch of Flint’s hands and the gentleness of his voice. To forget the steadiness of his heart, even as Silver had placed his hand over it. Curls up in the calm presence of Madi’s power, not quite magic but formidable on its own, and feels the terror of his secret being known go quiet in the back of his mind.

 

“What has he done to you?” she whispers and Silver cannot answer.

 

It was too frightening, to think of something like love being felt for someone like Flint.

 

 

****-** **

 

 

_War is a wretched thing._

 

_Everyone knows that, though some would want to make it into a glorious thing. A righteous thing._

 

_Would like to convince others that somehow, with enough pretty words, the blood and death and fear were worth it._

 

_War is also a patient thing. Bides its time nestled in the back of the mind, in the joints until it bursts forth like a fever. A plague entirely in the hands of men._

 

_Flint knows it well. An imperial British warship could wage war by itself for days, like a miniature city put to work upon the sea. Had learned to be a part of that well oiled machine until he didn’t need magic to keep up with the gunners. Didn’t need spells to sail a ship. Became so adept at fighting there was no one who could match him._

 

_It meant nothing. Fighting for the right of others to rule. To prove a point to people who did not care to remember the point it was he was trying to make. Who could not tell him from the soldier next to him._

 

_After losing Thomas, it was fighting for the sake of surviving. Fighting to keep the blood running through his veins, because his heart had no desire to anymore. Fighting to make the world feel a fraction of the pain he felt._

 

_Now, the rage has quieted. Waits, coiled around his spin like a snake._

 

_This time it’s different. This time, there are others._

 

_Others who are angrier than he is. Others who have miles of suffering, centuries. An unbowed queen stands at the front of them, her daughter beloved of their ghosts._

 

_This time, there is someone alive to come back to. A man who has such power it feels like being cast into the sea, as though he was spun from sunlight on the waves._

 

_A man who felt like possibility._

 

_So Flint lets the forest take him. Sinks into the earth, waiting for the redcoats to pass. For a traitor to bring them prey._

 

_The earth itself awakens when they strike, soil erupting in the air with every step they take. There’s a clash of blades and the crack of gunfire, but above it all Flint hears the pounding of his heart in his ears. The familiar rush of blood as he uses his body as a weapon, knuckle against skin when the soldiers get too close for gun or blade._

 

_He sheds blood until his mouth tastes of it, his clothes are matted to his skin with red. Sheds blood until the earth is wet with it, sticky and sour in the heat. Hornigold’s body falls magnificently into the loam and Flint is left to stand over him with the peculiar feeling of finally having squashed a bothersome fly, an annoyance put to an end._

 

_Then, there is silence._

 

_Silence that fills the air until it’s replaced with the moans of the wounded and the dying. With the rapid hiss and pop of Joji’s magic as he breaks the curses on the enemy’s weapons so they can take them. With the wild shriek of wind that whips through the forest as the maroons’ protection spells fall back into place, camouflaging their village from the outside world._

 

_It’s in the silence that he makes his way to the river that separates the forest from the village, the battlefield from the fortress, and when he looks across its wide, calm waters he can see Silver and Madi standing there._

_The water yawns between them, placid and calm despite the chaos around them. It calls to him, as all water does, and Flint slips into the river before he can think twice. Watches it turn dark with soil as he walks across, water shallow and slow before it becomes deep enough to swim. Swims until he reaches Silver, who holds out a hand turned grey with gunpowder._

 

_Flint places his hand, freshly washed clean of blood, in Silver’s and lets him pull him from the river. Feels something let loose from around his heart as he bends one knee before both of them, touching his forehead to the back of Silver’s hand._

 

_Just like that, war becomes a living thing too._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Two will be posted very soon! Thanks for your patience! :)


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